


The Hard Part

by notabadday



Category: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-10-02
Updated: 2015-10-02
Packaged: 2018-04-24 10:59:00
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,186
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4917010
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/notabadday/pseuds/notabadday
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Jemma's resilience and Fitz's perseverance brings them back together. (Post 3x01) </p><p>  <i>She hears him always. Her mind is a fight between herself – scared, tired, broken – and Fitz and all the faith he has in her. She can’t shake him. As long as he’s there, believing in her survival, the fight never goes out of her. She must get back, get home. He’ll be waiting.</i></p>
            </blockquote>





	The Hard Part

She hears him always. Her mind is a fight between herself – scared, tired, broken – and Fitz and all the faith he has in her. She can’t shake him. As long as he’s there, believing in her survival, the fight never goes out of her. She must get back, _get_ _home_. He’ll be waiting.

 The sweet, Scottish voice that reassures her is Fitz at his best: cheerful and naïve, with all the enthusiasm that he would have after a major scientific breakthrough.

 That’s how she knows the difference. When he calls out to her across dusty blue dunes, his voice is hoarse. And unlike her illusion, he chooses Jemma and not Simmons. It’s not the tireless voice that keeps reminding her to push on while she is too dispirited to respond with anything but an eye-roll; it’s the exhausted, broken reality she never thought she’d see again.

 That desperate sound, his distant cry, knocks the wind out of her. She stumbles. The words stick in her throat. Eventually, it’s a whisper lost on the hard wind that passes between them: “Fitz…”

 He catches her silhouette, midnight blue against a cobalt sky.

 He runs, fighting the resistance of great dirty gusts, to close the gap between them. Fitz is taking in lungfuls of dust and fighting to keep his eyes open against the sting of the polluted air. He daren’t take his eyes off her.

 Simmons moves to him with the wind on her side. A rush of adrenaline energises her.

 When they reach each other, it’s a collision. Their bodies crash against each other as the urgency for physical contact overwhelms them both, quickly moving to their knees as their legs prove not fit for purpose.

 Fitz holds them upright in their hug. He feels weak but pretends otherwise. A rough whisper escapes him, his mouth next to her ear as he simply says: “Missed you.”

 Simmons buries her face into his neck. Fitz looks and sounds different but the comfort of his embrace is unchanged. It’s the feel of him that she’s ached for.

 She turns her face towards him, her lips brushing against his neck as she says, quietly, tearfully, desperately, “I love you.” And her arms tighten around him. They’re still on that hostile blue planet, knees in the dust, but somehow she’s home.

 The sound of her voice offers more comfort than her message. He’ll never tell her the times he called her phone just to hear her voicemail message, or the hours he’d spend watching footage of lectures she’d given. And for Simmons, speaking has become unnatural, the humanity of it almost having become foreign to her. Their words fill the emptiness only previously interrupted by bad news: noises of the night, mysterious explosions, alien wildlife.

 Fitz lifts Simmons’ face to see her properly. Sad eyes looking to each other for comfort and, miraculously, finding it. He smiles a little bit. There’s fear and grief caught up in his expression, but she sees a smile beneath it all.

 After a beat, Fitz says, “Let’s get out of here.”

 Simmons sighs. “Yes, please,” she replies, nodding tearfully.

 

* * *

 

  

Simmons is sitting, Yorkshire tea in hand, with a blanket over her shoulders and Fitz’s arm draped loosely around her, resting on the frame of the sofa. Her damp, towel-dried hair drips onto the arm of Fitz’s shirt, not that he minds, and she’s wearing pajamas her parents bought her two Christmases ago with a dressing gown she lifted from Fitz back at the academy.

 “Any idea what S.H.I.E.L.D.’s holiday entitlement is?” Simmons says lightly, turning her head to watch Fitz’s muted reaction.

 “I think you might have gone over,” he replies, attempting to indulge her with their usual patter. His throat is dry still and his words are a sobering sound. It’s unintentional on Fitz’s part.

 She looks at him, concern in her expression, so he smiles – a little too big, a little too forced. “We’re both going to be okay, Fitz.”

 It floors him. His mouth opens but no sound escapes.

 “Once I accepted my... predicament,” she begins, carefully, looking down at the tea in her hands as she continues: “surviving was simple enough. The planet wasn’t without resources and this job has…” She takes a deep breath and he hears it hitch. “It’s prepared me for a lot. I had the skills I needed. Not to get back but to survive.”

 She looks back up at Fitz, confronts the tears she sees drying into his skin. “It was the isolation. It was the possibility of never seeing anyone again, of never seeing _you_ again. That was the hard part.”

 He looks at her, at how hard she’s trying, and follows her lead. “We’re both gonna be okay.”

 Simmons nods, satisfied with his response. If he doesn’t believe it yet, he will. She brings her mug to her lips and takes a loud sip for his amusement. Her eyes move from her tea to him again and she comments breezily, “You still owe me a dinner, by the way.”

 Fitz’s smile becomes genuine, the trauma of it all a backdrop to how beautiful and strong and resilient she is in this moment. With eyebrows raised, he replies: “Dinner?”

 “I don’t just say yes to anyone, you know. You’re a lucky man. A lucky man who owes me dinner.” Simmons shrugs playfully.

 “Yeah. I am,” he admits with a smile. Too tearful to hold her gaze, he bows his head as subtly as he can without drawing unnecessary attention to his emotional fragility.

 Of course, Simmons notices. She feels her heart swell as the reality of how much she is loved sets in.

 They are interrupted by a double knock, and Bobbi appears at the door. Wearing a compassionate smile, eyes apologetic for the interruption, she asks, “Are you ready?”

 Simmons takes a deep breath and looks at Fitz. “After?”

 “I’ll meet you outside Andrew’s office. Dinner anywhere you like. On me.”

 Simmons gives a tight-lipped smile, nodding her approval, before getting up leave with Bobbi.

 Noticing the way she bites her lip as her head turns away from him, Fitz calls after her: “Remember, if you feel uncomfortable, just tease him about May.”

 The words catch Simmons by surprise a little bit, her own worry eased in an instance while simultaneously her reluctance to leave Fitz intensifies. She turns back. With a hand on his damp cheek, she leans down and kisses him firmly on the mouth. Her face lingers in front of his, the question in his eyes amusing her. Then Simmons remembers they have company, and glances at Bobbi who comically looks away, playing totally oblivious.

 “She’ll be right back,” Bobbi reassures Fitz. Simmons takes comfort in the message too, before Bobbi redirects her reassurances to her. “And don’t worry, Jemma, it won’t be so bad. The May thing really works when you need to deflect.”

 Still only inches apart, they smile shyly at each other before Simmons lets Bobbi lead her away. Fitz has to remind himself she’ll be right back. _She’ll be right back_.


End file.
